Mrs. Flinger: A work in progress

UPDATE TO Mrs. Flinger October 16, 2015

Because the Universe has a wicked sense of humor, after this delcaration, my blog threw up all over my last upgrade.

So I'm starting over using Craft. Turning 40 and kid entering Jr High next year, sometimes it's just time for a change. These archives will still exist in the way the last child goes off to college and their room is the same for 20 years,
but it's just time to move forward.

Tomorrow my baby gets tubes. Possibly. I think. Maybe. Nov 30, 2008

Tomorrow my son, little baby “O” is due for tubes. TUBES. Internet, I have to tell you, this is possibly the best day of his life.

Or is it?

I’m scared. He has no clue. We’re set to be at the hospital at 6:30 AM. Nothing to eat or drink from midnight on.

But, he’s sick. He has another cold. He is snot and coughing and… well…. what d’ya know? He’s digging at his ears again. Just like he always does when he gets a cold. Those damn ears.

My ears.

Apparently my sister was a tube baby. She was one handful before tubes. Tubes changed her life! Tubes let her hear! Tubes set her free from anti-biotics!

I know I know.

But y’all? My son? Is about to get put “under”.

Scared is an understatement.

My son. My baby boy. My mister man. The one that goes, “ooohhhh!” when I show him.. well.. anything really. He’s just so full of zest and life. Of love. Of joy. Without really any good reason, he can make me laugh.

I love him to bits over and back again.

So tomorrow, if the doctors think it’s safe enough, they’ll put him under and give his ears a break. If he can breath under the medicine. Under sleep. Under unconsciousnesses.

And if it’s not safe enough? Well, I’m hoping and praying they make the right decision and send us home. Even if we wake the whole family at five AM. Even if we miss work a day for no reason.

Dreams Nov 25, 2008

You know those dreams that are so real you remember them, feeling the aftermath, for hours/days after? Lately my sub-conscious has run amok with tails or the President (elect), a forced marriage and really hot men hitting on me.

See? Dreams.

Most of the time I don’t analyze my dreams because it’s almost always a combination of some spicy casserole + alcohol + being woken up at some-strange-hour by a screaming kid. Perfect recipe for delicious sub-conscious meals. But today’s dream was both wonderful and disturbing. You’ll help me analyze it, won’t you?

:: lays on couch ala Therapy style ::

So I’m visiting an old old friend, I don’t even recognize where we are except somewhere in Houston, back in our old neighborhood, in a school or church or library. We’ve been given tasks, I can’t really explain what they are, exactly, aside form some sort of research. We’re dismissed to research and I slam, face first in to the chest of a very attractive man.

“Excuse me” I mutter catching my breath.

He says nothing but nods out of the way.

I continue on to find my book and scribble something furiously before the timer goes off and we’re forced to gather again in the main room.

The bell rings and everyone races to find a seat in the common room. Everyone, that is, except the handsome man. He’s standing, slyly in the back of the room watching all of us act like bees.

Sitting, and exhausted, I close my eyes for a moment when the head person sits and starts explaining what comes up next. It’s a teacher? A Pastor? I’m not sure but the voice is soft and soothing. I feel like I’m falling asleep until something calls me back. It’s Him. He’s standing in front of me and the touch of his finger on my arm makes me unable to breath. “Since you fell asleep during my instruction,” he says softly, “You may make it up to me by taking me to dinner.”

I forget how to breath.

He says as much.

I wake up.

I’d like to tell you that this man was my husband, but he wasn’t. He was a cross between Denny (Grey’s Anatomy Much?) and Edward (Twighlight Anyone?)

I’m pretty sure I’m so unoriginal that my dream is exactly that… dreams other people had, wrote about, showed on TV, and I’m re-incarnating it to my own fantasies.

As I type this a man, not my Denny/Edward mix comes up to me and starts hitting on me. No, I’m not shitting you. If I was shitting you I’d have made him handsome.

He’s not, really. Not in a traditional “good looking” way but in a “I’m pretty smoozy and that’s kinda gross” way. So, well, no, not at all. But he’s always been nice when I ordered my coffee and he’s so pleasant when I order non-fat and he says, “YOU don’t need non-fat” and I laugh and he hands me my coffee and says, “Have a nice day.”

So I smiled at him and said nice things but then glanced at this paper because Um.. I’m married.. and ... well… I don’t want you to spit in my coffee so let me reject you nicely…

You’re no Edward. Or Denny. Or Mr. Flinger.

Sorry this took some weird turns. Seriously, um, wasn’t expecting to be hit on today. However, I AM expecting to get out of breath watching TWIGHLIGHT tonight so THAT is something.

Also, I don’t know why I’d dream about hot men. This is my family. They’re perfect. Complete with nut grabs and crazy Dad in the background.

I looked back at him pulling at the straps screaming. I went through my memories of him somehow managing to squirm out of those same straps, of him standing on the seat as I drove down the highway, and of him arching his back in defiance, which I thought was purely that, definace, when I placed him in the car.

Until I remembered the manual for the seat. Maybe it was page 12 or something but it said (and I paraphrase):

Duh.

So today I pulled that little magic lever and VIOLA! Behold! The bucket seat transformed in to the properly adjusted forward facing seat it was intended to be.

Brutally Honest Monday The Return Of The Long Sweater (or is it?) Nov 17, 2008

I’m famous in my circle for loving 1998. Look, 1998? It was good. There was Dave Mathews Band. There was grunge. There was boots and hiking and being fresh out of college.

I love me some 1998.

So, today when I donned on my long sweater/robe the mister glanced up in his usually uninterested-in-my-wardrobe way, I was suprised to see him eyeing me. “Hot, aren’t I? Still got it!” I said as I slapped my ass.

“Uh, no, thkat’s not it. That sweater? Isn’t it a wee bit 1998?”

Gasp.

“No, it was more like 2000, thankyouverymuch. Jeeze.”

Tells you what he knows.

So, Internet? Brutally Honest: Is this the revival of a fantastic ass-loving trend? Or am I abusing 8 years of fashion forward?

*Sorry about the lighting, why YES, I did take the photo in the starbucks bathroom. And for the record I have jeans (boot cut, tsk tsk) with ballet flats. I know. I know.

Seeking Simplicity Nov 12, 2008

My husband regularly tells me I am the most ADD person he knows. I tell him he doesn’t know a lot of people. He tells me he can’t know too many more people because I’m all the people he can handle.

Then he kisses me and slaps my ass in fun and turns on the TV.

Lately I’ve had this urge. I often get “urges” or “a bee in my bonnet” or “any sort of cliche you can think of here that is a nice way of saying totally lost my shit.” Sometimes I crave my favorite city Bellingham. Sometimes I need to fly home to Texas. Sometimes I ache to hike or camp or kayak. But not in the way you think of a normal person missing things she used to do before kids. No, it’s more like a lady with PMS being told chocolate is NOT AN OPTION and then watch the unleashed crazy in her eyes as she sits in front of Ghirardelli.

Lately, I’ve been craving a farm. Now, I am not a farm girl. In fact, I grew up in the suburbs of South Houston where every fifth house was the same and our grass was manicured to perfection with not so much a dog off leash. But as I drive to drop off my son at his daycare, I pass farms of cows and barns and sheep. We talk about the animals and the types of trees. We watch the horses. We say “Moooo” a lot.

My husband, on the other hand, grew up on 5 acres of land with a turquoise barn. He’s talked about that barn and its role in his childhood as he and his brother jumped from the loft in to a pile of hay and spent hours hiding and shooting each other with pretend guns as cops and robbers.

It’s hard to buck the years of habit in your life. It’s nearly impossible to change a city girl in to a country girl, although Ree makes a convincing argument. My husband laughs as I talk about wanting a farm house. A barn. A BARN!

Finally after much discussion we found out it comes down to this: Simplicity. A symbol. That barn? It’s real, but maybe it’s not a barn, per say, but a choice. A lifestyle. A decision.

The sub-urban lifestyle of running to swimming, day care, meetings? It’s not where we thought we’d be in our early thirties. It’s our life, and we love our life, our jobs, our kids, our schedule. We’re happy with extra-curricular activities and working out at the YMCA. We love our friends and our new towels and our fresh couch and granite counter tops. But there’s something missing… something .... space? time? a yard? Or perhaps, a barn.

We want that life, the simple life, of kids running and jumping and going outside. Of teaching chores and life lessons. Of opening our curtains to see grass instead of twelve other houses. Of hearing frogs in the summer and the rain in the winter.

We’re starting to crave simplicity and balance. Balance: The always sought afterholy grail of motherhood. We’re all looking for it.

For some reason, I think mine is in a barn.

A turquoise barn.

Tasstle Shoes, Plants, Dancing and how they all come together today Nov 10, 2008

I was 12 years old when my Mom gave me my first marriage advice. “Leslie,” she said looking down at my perm and blue eye-shadow, “When you get married, be sure you look for three things in your husband. One, be sure he wears tasseled shoes. Two, be sure he has plants in his apartment. And three, make sure he can’t dance.”

I looked up at her in complete bewilderment. So she went on to explain:

The shoes represent someone with a conscience style and sense of self. Someone who has drive and motivation. Of course, back in the mid-eighties, tasseled shoes were the height of trend among successful mid-thirties men.

The plants represent a man who cares for other living things aside from himself. He takes responsibility and cares for others.

And finally, the one I was most confused about, the lack of dance ability. My mom explained that a “fast tawlkin’ smooth dancin’” man wasn’t the type that would settle down and raise a family. I would want a man who could stay home on a Friday and watch movies while kids slept upstairs. That I’d want someone who would be there with me when I was sick and not chomping at the bit to get out and party.

In essence, the fast dancer wasn’t husband material.

I remember looking up at my mother and asking her if Dad met all three of those criteria. She thought carefully for a moment and said, “He doesn’t have tasseled shoes.”

I never forgot that conversation.

And so it was that a short year after these words were isssued, back in 1989, I met my husband. At the age of 13, I met the man I’d have babies with. The man who would take me to prom, twice, and then marry me in a dress that cost less than all our formal High School danced combined. A man who would break up with me, watch me grow, fall in love with me again and stay my best friend for 19 years.

It’s a long story, ours is, filled with boring details about teen-age angst, being driven to dates together and first kisses. It’s long and boring and complicated with other lovers and states of distance between us. It’s mushy, filled with long phone calls and notes and sloppy poems.

It’s our story, though. And we love our story.

Today we celebrate our seven year wedding anniversary. We joke, often, with other people about the 19 years that seal us together. The long sorted past of friends and lovers and time and growing up together. We laugh, nod, and shrug at seven years. “It’s a drop in the hat” we joke. “We have 68 more to go.”

And I love that we mean it.

Today I realize what my mother meant and I’m thankful that I listened to her warnings to my 12 year old self. I married a man who cares for other people and living things, our children, our plants, our home, our family and friends. Who cares for us all when we’re sick or tired. Who stands beside us when we don’t want to stand at all. I married a man who doesn’t go to clubs or bars to watch the eye candy. I married a man who paints the entry with me on a Saturday night and giggles as we sing grunge songs from “back in the day” together. I married a man who curls up on the couch and lets me lay my head on his lap as we watch Grey’s Anatomy, not because he loves the show but because I do. I married a man who comes home each night to his family, even as hard as that can be some days when the kids are screaming and the wife is crying.

The tasseled shoes? Well, I married a man who does not wear tasseled shoes but who has a drive to support his family and a goal that motivates him in his career and in his place in life. Those tasseled shoes represented something their own image would long outgrow. Luckily, the man I married grew as well. I guess we really do marry someone like our Dads.

And so it is, our story. Seven years after our small marriage at the top of Mount Constitution, I know we’d do it again. We’d choose each other all over again.

In fact, we do. Daily.

*November 10th, 2001.

Live Blogging The Last Two Days Nov 03, 2008

Are you as giddy as I am? I’m completely unable to focus on nearly anyofmyother obligations. I’ve been trying to verbalize my emotions, to write with intelligence, to sit and really justify my logic and emotions and I can’t.

I think I’ve come down with an Adult case of ADHD.

(I’m currently typing this as I run in place.)

(I’m kidding. But only slightly.)

I have to thank my friend Aimee for following up on my challenge that I issued here. Since I’ve failed miserably at MY OWN CHALLENGE, it’s time I start updating, even if I have to do is as I go.

Join the ride. I’m just going to create my very own “open spewith of mah own brain” right here. And by my own brain, I mean lots of links and reactions to what’s going on. I hope you find it entertaining. If you don’t, I’m sure I’ll mis-spell and probably incorrectly use punctuation and exclamation points (!!!) so you can always giggle at that.

I’ve heard clips of people praising Obama because they will no longer have to think about how to fill their gas tank or pay their mortgage. Unfortunately, you will. You still have the same responsibilities, we all do, that come with being an adult. I expect the same with either candidate.

2. Education.

I agree. We need a change here. I’m completely unwilling to place my child in a system built on “No Child Left Behind.” But I want the choice of where to place my child in a system that best suits their own needs. “John McCain will place parents and children at the center of the education process, empowering parents by greatly expanding the ability of parents to choose among schools for their children. *” We don’t need more money in a failing school system but a complete transformation including choices, vouchers and charter schools. Competition drives the economy to better itself. Safeway lowers prices because Krogger is across the street outselling them. They best themselves for your business. Schools can and should be options to fit children’s needs. Some children won’t learn in a classroom setting while others will thrive with the peer competition and support. I’d like to make that choice myself, though. For my own child.

///////// November 4th /////////////

I voted. I voted and I want to finish posting my reasons why. Because in the end, we’re still going to sit and drink wine together. I just want to remember that I followed through with something today, something in the middle of every other thing. That I issued a challenge and I followed through, just like thesefantasticpeople. Thank you for that.

Link Update: I’m following Dana’s Live Blog today. Quite possibly one of the very best vocal conservative women online.

And, for those of you that don’t know this about me, I’m a complete Northern Exposure fan. So much so, that our little blog name, Flinger, comes from an episode of NX. (There’s a piece of Trivia for ya for another day.) So, with that bit of info, you’ll not be shocked when I do the aboslutely expected and include a bit from “Democracy In America” episode 15, Season 3: